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New fiscal crises near — Dems seek more tax increases…

WASHINGTON — In
case you thought there was no risk of your taxes going up again, think
again. Washington isn’t done with you yet.

Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, want lawmakers
to consider a fresh set of tax increases in the next several weeks when
they discuss whether to cut spending.
Republicans oppose raising
tax rates, especially after they just raised some of them for the first
time in two decades in the New Year’s deal that extended most – but not
all – of the expiring Bush tax cuts.

But much of what Obama is talking about is raising tax revenue
without actually raising tax rates. In Washington-speak, lawmakers will
try to collect more tax money by closing tax loopholes, perhaps limiting
popular tax deductions and to some degree changing the way citizens pay
into the popular Medicare and Social Security programs.

The New
Year’s deal raised income tax rates for individuals’ taxable income
above $400,000 and family income above $450,000. That’s less than 1
percent of all U.S. taxpayers. The deal is projected to raise about $600
billion over 10 years, not enough to significantly chip away at
deficits that still will total more than $6.8 trillion over the same
period. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill will be looking to trim $2 trillion
over 10 years from projected future deficits as part of any deal to
raise the nation’s debt ceiling by the end of February and prevent $109
billion in deep spending cuts from occurring in March.

Democrats
say Obama will continue to push for an equal split between revenues and
cuts – $1 trillion in new tax revenues and $1 trillion in spending cuts.

“The
president believes, as Republicans have said they believe, that we need
to reform our tax code, and that there are loopholes that are crying
out to be closed that no longer serve the country, if they ever did, and
that there are ways of capping deductions and reforming our tax code
that can produce more revenue in a fair way that, again, does not burden
the middle class, but asks the wealthiest to pay more,” White House
spokesman Jay Carney said.Read More